Today and Yesterday

Today, I could wake up at 9.45 because there was no tutti. After breakfast, I had to rehearse some pieces with Jean for a while. Whenever dad song leads at church, he almost always asks Jean and I to play the violin. I just took it as sight reading practice today. It was quite easy so there's nothing much to worry about. After that, I went online and sent Jie Ying the double concerto.

Yesterday:
The day of the concert finally arrived. We started rehearsing/meeting at 2pm. There were some problems with the lighting because our shadows of our heads fell on the stand and there would be one gigantic black hole in the music. After a while, the problem was relatively solved. Except that my scroll and fingers still casted shadows on the score so whenever we reached the bottom right hand lines, I had to either maneuver my violin higher or lower so Ariela and I could see. In the end, we decided to sit further apart so that there was no shadow. However, when the concert started, I tested my position and found that either the stand or my chair had been moved so I had to continue bobbing up and down during the concert. And another thing, Ariela and I got the stand that could not stand still. Whenever we flipped the page, the stand always spun. We decided to flip pages together whenever possible, I held the stand, Ariela flipped the page.

My fingers were freezing during the rehearsal. They had less kinetic energy and so reactions were slower. We ate dinner (mcd burgers because ms tan forgot to cater the food earlier) and then had a mass tuning session inside the small room. Joycelyn and I grabbed violins and started tuning them during dinner time but they went out of tune again so we had to tune again just before the concert started. When I finished tuning mine, I walked out and realised the concert was just about to start. This is the problem when I don't wear a watch, no time for mental preparation. Whenever we walked around, we sounded like a herd of elephants or we were staging world war 5.

The pieces were not that bad, at least we managed to always end together (yes, not start together). I am still very amazed at the blue tango. We started at different tempos and everyone was in a state of panic. I looked at Mr Lee and waited for some instructions or a hint on where everyone was but he looked just as confused. Fortunately, we managed to merge after a few bars, which is what still amazes me. Double concerto was ok, at least we managed to stay together (start and end together). The violin ones overpowered the violin 2s and ms tan wasn't playing the violin 2 part.

Our concert ended in about an hour I think. Then, many people crowded at the back and I was stuck at the door and couldn't go in or out. So I contributed as a door stopper. After that, mr lee and ms tan debriefed us and we went home. I think quite a few people forgot their shoes because I wouldn't have remembered if Jean hadn't reminded me. She said she specially arranged my shoes backwards so it looked like an odd one. When I reached home, I transferred the recordings Jean took with her hand phone onto the computer. She recorded every piece and I'm surprised neither her battery nor her memory died. The quality isn't good but it satisfied me for a while. because the mistakes were not so obvious.